Yeah?
We'll see about that ...
The possibility of sex robots over-exerting their human lovers to the point of collapse is just one of the ethical conundrums academics and society need to get their head round, a Swiss academic told a conference on sex robots today. Oliver Bendel, of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Northwestern Switzerland, told …
“If the machine over-exerts the human, it reduces the possibility of human sex,” Bendel warned.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that if you have a sexbot that you find so attractive and sexually fulfilling that you allow it to "over-exert" you, then you're probably not going to be that bothered about human sex.
(I say "buying", because I don't want to countenance the idea of renting one.)
"Renting" is already quite normal for human-human sex, especially amongst the younger crowd; and if you think humans would be more hygienic than purpose-built sexbots, you've probably not given much thought to the biology of human orifices.
the 'rental' problem is solved as long as the bot has detachable/replaceable "parts" that can be properly cleaned/sterilized, or simply "you have to buy your own". 99% of the bot could be 'rented' and 1% purchased.
And of course, it wouldn't demand "palimony", expensive gifts. It wouldn't gripe at you for no reason, lie about you to your friends/enemies and/or take you to court, etc. etc. etc.
And if people don't accept your "Robosexuality", you can call them "Robo-phobes".
[there's a term for something a lot *like* this on certain image boards... yeah, 'moot' point]
And of course, it wouldn't demand "palimony", expensive gifts. It wouldn't gripe at you for no reason, lie about you to your friends/enemies and/or take you to court, etc. etc. etc.
That'll be version 2.0 then ... or optional Service Packs perhaps?
It doesn't matter what society-imposed "safeguards" or morals are included; the modding/cracking communities will be all over this from day one. Just look at how quickly games are cracked. I see no reason why the firmware of a sexbot could be not modified to get around this.
And I should imagine the motivation to do so would be immense, to say the least...
"....a sexbot that you find so attractive and sexually fulfilling....." Even more to the point, is he suggesting we should somehow punish those women that are currently the "apex predators" in attractiveness as they reduce the chance men will want to have sex with "ordinary" women? Will a legally-enforced limit be set to how sexy Margot Robbie can look going to be set? Seeing as the whole fashion industry depends on people remaining insecure about their looks and constantly trying to attain an artificial and - frankly, for the majority of people - unobtainable level of attractive "perfectness", I don't see that being a problem for the sex robot manufacturers in court. And that's before we start looking at other hanger-ones to the fashion industry, such as womens' magazines, which seem to constantly pump out articles stating "buy this rag and we'll tell you how to have the best sex ever".
Not the IoN (Internet of Nannies).
Too late, it's already here. We have governments trying to stop porn, wanting magical encryption, backdoors, and the usual "thinking of the children" and of course, terrorism.
Here's the latest one: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/19/south_carolina_calls_for_smutfree_pcs/
I know you're being deliberately obtuse but taxis are not available everywhere. I live in the countryside a good distance from the nearest population centre in a country where taxis are expensive (and Uber banned). For a taxi to come out of the city to pick me up from my local and take me home (about a 10 minute drive) costs upwards of 65 euros. Makes a quick pint or two pretty expensive
As a male, when I'm done, well, I'm done. I don't think a robot is going to revitalize me any faster than a flesh and blood woman.
As a woman, well, the robotic parter can keep going until the woman is done.
Surely there would be a "safe" button like a safe word on such a mechanical device?
Smiley Face as we all like Happy Endings ;-}
"Slightly disproportionate as features go, but I can see how it's not entirely a bad thing."
Given the way spiders control flies without the use of toxic chemicals, thus promoting human health, taking action against arachnophobes might not indeed be a bad thing. But killing is over-drastic. Instead the two ideas should be combined into a sex robot that is activated when arachnophobes encounter spiders, thus using operant conditioning to remove their phobia.
It would be banned in Australia, obviously.
Given the way spiders control flies without the use of toxic chemicals
So, injection of a potent neurotoxin to paralyse the fly, and then injection it with enzymes that melt it alive is not toxic? Are you a vegetarian or otherwise critically impaired?
Note: Re-reading that, it sounds horribly aggressive and insulting, and it isn't meant that way. Imagine the sort of ribbing you'd get in the pub, if you would. Maybe one day we'll have an icon for that.
This post has been deleted by its author
"Note: Re-reading that, it sounds horribly aggressive and insulting, and it isn't meant that way. Imagine the sort of ribbing you'd get in the pub, if you would. Maybe one day we'll have an icon for that."
How about that glass of beer, but tête-bêche? By recycling an existing image, we are conserving electrons. That is the first law. By Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, the beer itself would be more strongly attracted to the table than to the glass. But in Canada, at least, putting an empty glass upside down on a table in a drinking establishment means that you are willing to fight anybody in the house. So for ribbing the glass must stay full. Or, there is no table, and therefore no fisticuffs.
But what I really want to know is, where may I purchase this arachnophone? O, to hear the symphony of Metebelis III!
I think that the subject in the headline has been dealt with in Fiction and in Science Fiction, but because it would probably get a book banned in many jurisdictions, authors have chosen to deal with it euphemistically or even symbolically. One such described a relationship between a male astronaut, and a female companion who had chosen an operation which made her more On-Off, less cyclic; to help with the exigencies of long periods in Space. Before long, he was wondering if he was wise to refuse this same operation. She was way too much his energizer bunny. As she wasn't a robot, he could not simply turn her off when he had had enough.
> I doubt i'd legally be able to program the robot to do what i'd like it to do to me in Britain.
Yeah, but that's not really a robotics problem, that's a challenge to the artificial taste and smell industry and given how crap most of those are I suspect the female of the species has a long time to go before becoming obsolete.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised
Speaking of Futurama, I was wondering if Dr. Bendel had primarily done his research by watching Futurama's "I Dated a Robot" public service announcement.
Yup - Those names: Adrian David Cheok, Kate Devlin, David Levy, Genevieve Liveley, Eleanor Hancock.
I wonder, they do sound similar to all those people who want to date me if only I click on this here link.
Maybe the robots are already coming? Sexbotzs and Conferences about them are just to lure us in and secretly replace us with robot copies - having plied all of our secrets from us with unspeakable and lewd acts.
So what do they propose doing about human lovers who over-exert their partners? I'm sure most of us have either done it or had it done to us, so no need to share details.
I'd say this is going to be a natural step to removing sex from our lives at all, because we're already at the point where we can make sperm and ova from skin cells, how long can it be necessary for?
I'm actually more likely to over-exert myself for a human partner than I would if I were just out for my own pleasure. In fact when I stumble over an oasis during an occasional arid period, I'm likely to find myself aching all over the next day.
What will do for the ticky-tickers of hedonists is the use of pharmaceutical substances - but over exertion can happen when dancing vertically, not just horizontally.
For some reason I'm now thinking of a Philip K Dick story about a colony on Mars being fed a narcotic that only produces a hallucinatory idyll when the user is playing with miniature models of pleasant environments.
Hmm, all mobile mobile phones have to be capable of ringing emergency services - even without a SIM or passcode; the logic being that it is unacceptable for a device not to be able to call for help just because of a billing dispute.
It strikes me that any robotic simulacrum of a human that could pass as an adequate 'lover' would necessarily have the sensors and motors needed to detect and possibly react to a range of medical events (suspected choking, heart attack, stroke etc) that might befall their human 'partner'. Would it be mandatory that all such androids have to have the necessary software? So then, it is a nurse, as well as a 'lover'... from there, simple tasks such as feeding the cat (if you have a real cat and not a robotic cat) and cooking dinner wouldn't require much additional programming / training.
Of course, it is plausible that by the time such androids are built, humans will have microscopic biomedical sensors implanted in them as a matter of course, and that any detection of anomalous health data results in said data immediately being sent off-site to medical staff / systems, who can then remotely utilise any nearby sexbot / robot waiter / aircon systems* to mitigate the emergency until paramedics (human or robotic) arrive.
*There are a range of medical emergencies where the patient's life expectancy is increased if their body temperature is reduced. There is currently a device used that uses the large surface area of your lungs to rapidly drop your body temperature.
Well a hoover being friendly to ladybirds is one thing, but I don't want a one that won't suck up creepy crawlys. The summer after we bought our house we made the mistake of leaving the kitchen window open and the lights on on the night the ants fly.
Big mistake!
Came into the kitchen to find every surface crawling.
The only answer was to breakout the Vax.
Soon cleared the little buggers
Then I realised I sucked up so many the bag had come adrift and there was just a seething ball of the damn things in the drum.
Far far better than religion, bread or circuses at keeping the plebs quiet.
On the subject of robots that over exert their human partner, a song on exactly those lines was more or less the college theme tune when I was at Imperial back in the 70s. I'm rather surprised no-one has mentioned it before.
It started "an engineer told me before he died"...
"What I want to know is why academics are spending so much time thinkin' 'bout sex robots."
yeah answer is probably obvious. but I'll enumerate my thoughts anyway..
1. why play "the game" when (if you're a geek) you can INVENT something
2. the consequences following a sexual encounter with a 'fleshy' female are potentially life-damaging
(and that includes a lifetime of legal problems, from false accusations to paternity issues)
3. except for certain parts of the world, it seems that females are being conditioned into becoming man-hating b.i.itches, particularly in colleges.
4. who wants to raise offspring in *THIS* kind of environment? ninny-nanny neighbors, helicopter parenting, public schools that are indoctrination centers, yotta yotta yotta
Robots are looking pretty damn good!
[I always figured that the p0rn industry would be where all of the really cool development for human-like androids would be made, particularly gynoids]
So, when you're tired of pretending to be someone you are NOT in order to get women to even TALK to you, or forking over huge amounts of money and/or expensive gifts in the hope of 'getting lucky', or marrying some lady that was pretending to be 'what you wanted' so that she [later] can take you for everything you've got, or told "no means no [unless it means yes]" by every female you even ask to go to Starbucks, and maybe fired once or twice for 'harassment' because you asked a lady at work [or AT SCHOOL] out on a date, or been forced to endure "sensitivity training" simply because you looked at a woman's boobs once too many, MAYBE, just MAYBE, it's time for an *ALTERNATIVE* ???
And then 'death by snu snu' not such a bad thing, perhaps...
And, yes, taxpayers _somewhere_ are funding this critical research.
Goes well with the $20 anti-porn chip law in South Carolina, does it not?
Sometimes, I get the reason for all the cynicism about guvment being a waste of money, despite most everyone rather liking public services like education and health.
Sometimes, I get the reason for all the cynicism about guvment being a waste of money, despite most everyone rather liking public services like education and health.
If you look into American, and increasingly British, politics, it's the education and health they don't want to spend money on.
Microsoft robot: (approaching happy ending) "Sorry. Something went wrong :/ " Invalid Endpoint? Installing updates 30% Please do not pull out or shut down your robot.
Apple robot: (human) "Ouch!" (robot) "But our marketing team has decided that you like that." What do you mean you need my iCloud password again?? Press harder for more options..
Linux robot: (robot) "Unsatisfied dependency" (human) "FSCK!" chmod.. configure WINE.
Either way you can satisfy sexual urges at any time you want for as long as you want. I don't see how sex robots will exhaust people more than masturbation would.
Now if they can wire directly into your brain so you have a push button orgasm, then we'll probably all die quite quickly, at least based on what they learned from doing the same to rats.
....that the user agreed to before the 'bot was activated that misuse or overuse of this product may cause situations that could potentially injure the user. Users was advised of all risks and was required to waive liability claims.
Anyway, think of it as enhancing natural selection.
Will be there be an adult Robot Wars?
Get some machines and have them go for it and see which ones have a seizure first or which create most orgasms - Craig Charles can come back and do the commmentating.
But more importantly will the powers that be allow them to face sit?
Or even, um.. ok, I won't go there.
I would assume that you could only download configurations from a government controlled website, and that there will be a centrally administered body to ensure that only approved activities are allowed.
Or maybe you'll be allowed to download voice packs like you could do with the TomTom satnavs back in the day. You could have Tasty Theresa, Margaret the Minx or Saucy Sturgeon for those chaps north of the border, or for the ladies you could have Dirty Dave, Girthy Gordon or...no. Just no.
Obviously the UK-approved bedroom-bots would have a chip-and-pin reader on the front too, to allow easy payments to HMRC for the 50% todger-tax that would inevitably be levied against any robo-humping.
I enjoy these discussions around AI and the ethical conundrums they will bring up. And people are talking about embedding "laws" into the AI for the protection of humans or other reasons. Asimov would approve. But it's not going to be like that. We don't live in that kind of society. It is a competitive market. Every maker of AI will invent it's own implementation of laws. Whatever sells really. And a self-limiting robot in THIS circumstance will not sell.
Surely all we would need to do is amend asimov laws of robotics from:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
To include:
A robot must not F&%$ a human to death.
All fixed...
Been done. Have you not been following the Prenda Law case? Evil robot lawyers too.
(I gather that Prenda was originally intended to be a sex robot company but the marketing department misunderstood the specification, which required them to "screw as many johns as possible.")
The idea of allowing a sexbot to say no rather defeats the purpose of having them in the first place. The people who dream of sexbots do so because they are seeking a partner who cannot refuse them, unlike all the humans they have tried to have sex with.
I saw a doco on TV a few years back about men (they were all men of course) trying to build sexbots in their garages and basements (there seems to be a vibrant maker community of amateur sexbot builders). They were all anorak-wearing weirdos who had (probably wisely) given up trying to get anywhere with real women.
I can't remember the source, but some years ago I read an article about some outfit in the US (west coast, I think) which made and sold apparently realistic non-robotic sex dolls. I recall they were highly customisable per purchaser, very expensive, and (from photos at the time) did look surprisingly realistic. ISTR there was even mention of construction methods to ensure realistic articulation, flesh and skin.
Despite the arguably sleazy topic it was quite fascinating, because you couldn't read it without wondering, '"Well, what happens next? They'll build mobile, automated ones."
Still seems like something that's a very long way off, even if society doesn't have a pang of moral horror about the whole thing. And you have to ask this practical question: if you're so frustrated, or for some reason otherwise inclined simply to pay for sex, won't a human sex worker always be cheaper than a robot?
Realdolls are still going, unsurprisingly.
There are multiple very obvious answers to your question :
Robots may or may not be expensive, but either way, if they're good enough to have sex with you, they'll be good enough to be rented.
Human sex workers are not cheap. On a one off basis they're much less expensive than a Realdoll or a future imagined sex robot, but on a repeated basis, a robot may be cheaper.
For men, there is a large stigma with using any form of sex aid or sex worker, and the stigma is larger for using a sex worker.
"For men, there is a large stigma with using any form of sex aid or sex worker, and the stigma is larger for using a sex worker."
I think it's the other way around.
You might tell your mate that you shagged a prostitute.
But you'll _never_ tell your mate that you've got a Tenga in your bedside drawer.
Now (assuming you're a man who likes women) ask how the 'average woman' would respond. Given that I've been told to my face by more than one woman that if I'd visited a prostitute I'd be thought less of, you'll excuse me if I believe what I'm told by people I trust.
(I don't personally use prostitutes, but don't have a problem with people I do. However, I think it's arguable that the statement of 'use a prostitute' often doesn't mean 'I won't have a problem with it', it means ' The reason you can't find someone you like to sleep with is difficult, so I'm going to take the easy way out to make you go away')